The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 46, No. 1 - 83

Socially Responsible Leadership in RAs

The leadership that RAs
demonstrate in modeling good
academic performance . . ., their
ability to create community within a
residence hall, and their liaison role
between students and university
staff position them as highly
influential members of the campus
community.

an overview of each value. Students in both
formal and informal roles may exhibit these
seven values of leadership, and educators can
use the SCM as a guide for assisting students
in developing the seven C's.
This study utilized the SCM as a way to
measure leadership abilities in RAs. If RAs
demonstrate characteristics of the SCM, it is
important to determine if these characteristics
are unique to RAs or are common to students
engaging in different kinds of leadership opportunities. As such, RAs were compared
to other student leaders (OSLs) with similar
levels of responsibility, such as peer mentors
and advisors.

RESEARCH ON OUTCOMES OF
RESIDENT ASSISTANTS AND
OTHER STUDENT LEADERS
Resident Assistants
RAs who engaged the most in leadership
practices as identified by the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI), an instrument

based on Kouzes and Posner's (2007) The
Leadership Challenge, were considered more
effective by their supervisors than RAs who
were less engaged in these practices (Posner &
Brodsky, 1993). There are multiple factors affecting performance; for example, emotional
intelligence-the ability to monitor and differentiate personal feelings and feelings of
others-was found to be a significant predictor
of RA performance (Jaeger & Caison, 2006).
In contrast, Wu and Stemler (2008) found that
emotional intelligence was not a significant
predictor of RA performance when controlling
for personality and general intelligence traits,
but they did identify personality traits as a reliable predictor of RA performance. Sadouskas
(2011) later reported that personality traits
were not a significant predictor for RA performance; instead, GPA, class rank, experience
as an RA, and number of residents were more
highly correlated to RA performance.
As indicated above, multiple factors influence RA job performance. Wu and Stemler
(2008) reported that female RAs performed
significantly better than male RAs but that
race and ethnicity were not significant predictors of performance. Cultural factors have also
been investigated; while RAs at liberal arts
colleges demonstrated greater intercultural
competence, collectively there were no significant differences in intercultural competence
between RAs and other students (Martin &
Blechschmidt, 2014). Increased staff diversity
also leads to RAs feeling more confident in
addressing cultural issues (Johnson & Kang,
2006). In their assessment of multicultural
competence among RAs, Watt, Howard-Hamilton, and Fairchild (2003) reported that female
RAs were more competent in addressing multicultural issues than were male RAs, liberal
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 46, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 46, No. 1